Day -545. WorldCup2018
The end of the day. That's always my time for this. And it's not a figurative "end of the day." It's usually the 24th hour of the day that I sit down to write this. And on a day like today I have all these things I want to get into but don't have the energy for. Oh, to make this a full time job!
Today it's Antlers and Madrid. Not Antlers in Madrid, of which I'm sure there are many decorative ones at this time of the year, in Madrid. More Antlers in Japan, of the Kashima type, who will play the real Madrid as opposed to the not real Madrid on Sunday in the Club World Cup final (and that is a very bad joke from many years ago when my friend and I would entertain ourselves watching live Maltese football. It's a terrible joke, which coincided with the installation of the new scoreboard at the national stadium in Malta that displayed the "real time", but didn't have a word for the other time. We were watching Maltese football, we needed self-entertainment).
Sunday, 05.30 Toronto, Canada time. Add, or subtract, whatever you need to that to figure out what time you need to be looking for a live stream online. Like I said, a few days ago, in the old days before it became the Macdonald's, Visa, Budweiser, etc Fifa Club World Cup it was easy to watch on free, antenna-on-the-roof TV. Now you need to add another worrisome monthly bill to your household to be able to watch to it.
The other thing on my mind, to be discussed further, is Gianni Infantino's fantastic (in his head) new plan for World Cup USA/Canada/Mexico 2026 with 48 teams. Easy, he says, 16 groups of 3 teams. And apparently, again according to the lovable Gianni, the national federations love the idea. I didn't see any mention of exactly which national federations he managed to brainwash but, hey, it might not be that bad of an idea. Why limit the biggest football tournament in the world to 32 teams when in 2018, for example, one of Ghana, Nigeria and Algeria are not going to qualify because Africa get so few spots?
Who doesn't agree with Infantino's insight is the European Clubs Association. They think a bigger World Cup will mean more matches for their precious investments, the players they spend millions on for whom they get no compensation for their huge transfer fees if they get injured at a World Cup. Jovial Gianni has reassured everybody in advance that his expanded World Cup will not mean more matches. He has it all figured out that the winning team will still play 7 matches over 32 days, just as it was with a 32 team World Cup.
But like I said I don't have the energy for all this right now. I can't get into how this is the same ECA who announced that the top 4 countries in Europe- Germany, Italy, Spain, England- will each get 4 guaranteed spots in the Champions League. The ECA that looks after the big spenders.
I don't even really have the time to mention my personal disillusionment and embarrassment with my Aston Villa. My hope that they would rebound after relegation last season is looking rather less hopeful. Last Tuesday I made the effort to watch them play Norwich online and it was the most pitiful display of football I have watched for a while. And they still won. Norwich that is. Villa were dreadful, if that is worse than pitiful. I now want to ignore them for a while and hope that when I come back to consciousness they have won 7 or 8 in a row and are in with a shout of playoff redemption. That's the joy of living in North America and following, or not, hockey, basketball or baseball. They play a thousand and one games all season before it all coming down to playoffs, so you can tune out for 500 games and it may not matter. Lose 10 in a row? Ah, it's ok. Check back in 2 months and they might have won 10 in a row while you forgot they were still playing. Not so with Aston Villa and the week in, week out of the cut throat English Championship. I still want to call it the Second Division. Villa don't deserve the honour of playing in such a lofty named division.
So that's my short post about what I don't have the time to write about. Maybe tomorrow, which it now is.
The end of the day. That's always my time for this. And it's not a figurative "end of the day." It's usually the 24th hour of the day that I sit down to write this. And on a day like today I have all these things I want to get into but don't have the energy for. Oh, to make this a full time job!
Today it's Antlers and Madrid. Not Antlers in Madrid, of which I'm sure there are many decorative ones at this time of the year, in Madrid. More Antlers in Japan, of the Kashima type, who will play the real Madrid as opposed to the not real Madrid on Sunday in the Club World Cup final (and that is a very bad joke from many years ago when my friend and I would entertain ourselves watching live Maltese football. It's a terrible joke, which coincided with the installation of the new scoreboard at the national stadium in Malta that displayed the "real time", but didn't have a word for the other time. We were watching Maltese football, we needed self-entertainment).
Sunday, 05.30 Toronto, Canada time. Add, or subtract, whatever you need to that to figure out what time you need to be looking for a live stream online. Like I said, a few days ago, in the old days before it became the Macdonald's, Visa, Budweiser, etc Fifa Club World Cup it was easy to watch on free, antenna-on-the-roof TV. Now you need to add another worrisome monthly bill to your household to be able to watch to it.
The other thing on my mind, to be discussed further, is Gianni Infantino's fantastic (in his head) new plan for World Cup USA/Canada/Mexico 2026 with 48 teams. Easy, he says, 16 groups of 3 teams. And apparently, again according to the lovable Gianni, the national federations love the idea. I didn't see any mention of exactly which national federations he managed to brainwash but, hey, it might not be that bad of an idea. Why limit the biggest football tournament in the world to 32 teams when in 2018, for example, one of Ghana, Nigeria and Algeria are not going to qualify because Africa get so few spots?
Who doesn't agree with Infantino's insight is the European Clubs Association. They think a bigger World Cup will mean more matches for their precious investments, the players they spend millions on for whom they get no compensation for their huge transfer fees if they get injured at a World Cup. Jovial Gianni has reassured everybody in advance that his expanded World Cup will not mean more matches. He has it all figured out that the winning team will still play 7 matches over 32 days, just as it was with a 32 team World Cup.
But like I said I don't have the energy for all this right now. I can't get into how this is the same ECA who announced that the top 4 countries in Europe- Germany, Italy, Spain, England- will each get 4 guaranteed spots in the Champions League. The ECA that looks after the big spenders.
I don't even really have the time to mention my personal disillusionment and embarrassment with my Aston Villa. My hope that they would rebound after relegation last season is looking rather less hopeful. Last Tuesday I made the effort to watch them play Norwich online and it was the most pitiful display of football I have watched for a while. And they still won. Norwich that is. Villa were dreadful, if that is worse than pitiful. I now want to ignore them for a while and hope that when I come back to consciousness they have won 7 or 8 in a row and are in with a shout of playoff redemption. That's the joy of living in North America and following, or not, hockey, basketball or baseball. They play a thousand and one games all season before it all coming down to playoffs, so you can tune out for 500 games and it may not matter. Lose 10 in a row? Ah, it's ok. Check back in 2 months and they might have won 10 in a row while you forgot they were still playing. Not so with Aston Villa and the week in, week out of the cut throat English Championship. I still want to call it the Second Division. Villa don't deserve the honour of playing in such a lofty named division.
So that's my short post about what I don't have the time to write about. Maybe tomorrow, which it now is.
No comments:
Post a Comment